Sunday, February 11, 2007

Sunday Roundup

Those intent on starting Sunday morning in a depressing fashion can read this recent article from the Baltimore Sun. The upshot: 17 students in a communications class at NCCU were recently asked their views on the case. Nine said they believed the accuser was sexually assaulted. The other eight said it could have happened, but that she might be impaired and couldn’t remember anything.

Said one NCCU student: “You have this team of white lacrosse players from Duke, and you have this North Carolina Central University black girl that strips for a living. It’s just kind of not in her favor.” Added a local pastor, Carl Kenney, “The consensus I’m gathering, particularly from African-American females, is that the system was weighted very heavily on behalf of the privileged.”

To say that the system favored the “privileged” and “white lacrosse players from Duke” means that we should just ignore the events of the last 10 months, in which the county’s district attorney and the city’s police broke rule after rule in order to back up the accuser’s tale.

Other quotes:

“I personally believe something happened.”

“We saw an African-American female and white young men, and we still see that. And the history between the two groups is one that’s not favorable. So for us, especially being black women, even today we stay on the defensive.”

“None of us have really been in that type of situation she was in. To be violated like that, that’s trauma . . . there is truth and there is validity to that story.”

The last student didn’t identify which of the accuser’s many stories contained truth and validity.

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As part of the continuing stream of impressive commentary from the college media, Brandon McGinley had a must-read column in the Daily Princetonian. His topic? The “disgraceful aftermath” of the allegations made against the lacrosse team: that “without considering the potential innocence of their students, the postmodern elite among the faculty at Duke sprung into action.”

As McGinley observed, “It was irrelevant that the case against the students deteriorated daily; it was irrelevant that the accused were members of the Duke community and, as such, might be entitled to respect and support; and it was irrelevant that the young men were innocent until proven guilty. Their status as wealthy Caucasian males was enough to pass judgment on their actions and their character.”

McGinley recounted some of the most indefensible comments (Houston Baker, Karla Holloway), but focused primarily on Group of 88 members’ refusal to reconsider their actions in recent weeks. “One would hope,” McGinley correctly reasoned, “that now, after the accuser and the prosecutor have been discredited and the allegations have been all but obliterated, the faculty who encouraged this shameful display would have the humility to acknowledge their error.” Instead, of course, the “clarifying” faculty produced a document, “published only a few weeks ago, which pompously rejects all requests for apology or retraction.”

McGinley also took note of Cathy Davidson’s apologia, particularly her claim that the real “social disaster” was that “18 percent of the American population lives below the poverty line” and “women’s salaries for similar jobs are substantially less than men’s.” McGinley, unlike the Group, has no trouble identifying “the real social disaster” in this case—that 88 members of “the Duke faculty appointed themselves the sole arbiters between right and wrong, innocence and guilt” and “determined the guilt of the lacrosse players based solely on preconceived notions about their race, gender and financial situation—prejudices equal to racism and sexism.”

It’s not clear whether the Group of 88 figures presenting at tomorrow’s edition of the Rehab Tour would consider McGinley’s column part of the campaign of “intimidation” against them.

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Beth Brewer’s civil affidavit urging the removal of Mike Nifong from office attracted considerable media attention and an odd resolution—Durham Superior Court judge Orlando Hudson announced that he would stay any action on the matter until Nifong’s ethics trial has concluded.

There is, however, nothing in the relevant law, General Statute §7A-66, to suggest that Hudson possesses the power to stay consideration of Brewer’s affidavit.

How to explain Hudson’s action? It might be that he simply considers state law irrelevant in Durham. More likely, the judge is privy to information suggesting Nifong might be on his way out. (Of course, I admit that I might be overly optimistic in this interpretation, though Hudson does seem to have a good reputation.) WRAL quoted former federal prosecutor Dan Boyce, a frequent commenter on the case unassociated with Nifong critics, arguing that Nifong has “got to consider whether, in the interest of justice and in fairness to the people of Durham County, whether it’s time to resign.”

It remains a mystery to me why the N&O editorial page hasn’t echoed this sentiment—or at least urged Nifong to step aside until his case is resolved. The Herald-Sun, of course, appears to cherish Nifong’s behavior.

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Last week featured a good deal of intentional and unintentional humor.

The unintentional:

1.) Responding to the revelation that Governor Easley had extracted from Nifong a promise to serve only as an interim appointee, Nifong backer Mark Edwards asked in the Herald-Sun: “Is there something special about Mike [Nifong]? Is there something special about Durham?”

After what we’ve witnessed over the past 10 months, it hardly seems necessary to answer those questions.

“I’m looking forward to having the case heard and having the opportunity to have my side told publicly,” Nifong told the Associated Press. “I would really hope that everybody would be willing to withhold judgment until that procedure that is already in place had been given an opportunity to work.”

“If only,” R&R reasoned, “he would have practiced that in the handling of the Duke lacrosse team.” Nifong, it seems, was oblivious to the irony in his comments.

The intentional humor:

1.) The staff at The Hatemongers’ Quarterlyannounced “painful” news: at a party around a year ago, “either one, two, three, or fourteen Mike Nifongs came up to us, assaulted us, and then brutally raped us. Yeah, that’s right: Every last member of the crack young staff. All 250 or so of us . . . In fact, we’re certain that he had a moustache at the time. And, difficult as it may be to believe, he answered to the name ‘Adrian Zmed.’”

For those who disbelieve this tale, the THQ staff bets “that you also don’t know what a social disaster looks like. Kim Curtis could sure teach you a thing or two about a thing or two.”

They continue:

And we can prove that Mike Nifong was our assailant. In fact, if you line up a number of Mike Nifongs in a row, tell us that each one is Mike Nifong, we’re willing to bet that we could pick Mike Nifong out of a crowd.

In addition, we have absolutely no DNA evidence to help our case. But, heck, who needs that stuff? Certainly not the great legal mind of Nancy Grace.

Amazingly, the “correspondence” was copied onto the comments section of the Edwards blog by a reader who thought the e-mails were legitimate.

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In an early November interview with the AP, Nifong remarked, “I must say that the single good thing about all the publicity that I’ve gotten is that so many people know my face now that it’s really easy for me to meet people. Before, literally very few people had any idea who I was, so I had to go up and introduce myself to everybody. And now I don’t have to do that.”

There’s no denying that Nifong has made a name for himself. UrbanDictionary has introduced the word “Nifonged,” or “a verb that describes the railroading or harming of a person with no justifiable cause to do so, except for one’s own gain . . . It is created to display someone being taken advantage of unfairly by someone without scruples or morals.” (“Railroaded” is a suggested synonym.)

Meanwhile, at the N&O’s “Bulls Eye” blog, Ben Niolet discovered that “for at least one judge, Mike Nifong’s name is a shorthand . . . In a federal Court of Appeals, a judge dropped the Durham prosecutor’s name to emphasize what he saw as misdeeds by the government in a case of international money laundering.”

Wrote Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith: “This is a case of a prosecution run amok. Mike Nifong, another prosecutor apparently familiar with the ‘win at any cost’ mantra, most surely would approve.”

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Emily Bazelon of Slate had an interesting column last week that placed the ethics charges against Nifong in a broader perspective. What should happen to Nifong?, she asks. “Nothing good, according to just about everyone who has weighed in on the fate of the North Carolina district attorney.”

Bazelon’s column notes that Nifong’s treatment seems to be against the norm: “Prosecutors are rarely punished for breaking the rules designed to ensure that defendants get a fair trial.”

A case could be made, Bazelon contends, that “the North Carolina State Bar may have moved too aggressively. By charging Nifong with ethics violations now, it swooped in to disrupt an ongoing criminal case brought by a duly elected district attorney.”

Of course, the Bar had little choice but to follow this approach, since there appeared to be no other way to get a rogue prosecutor off the case. North Carolina, unlike most states, has not followed Standard 3-2.10(b) of the ABA’s suggested guidelines, which suggests:

The governor or other elected official should be empowered by law to substitute special counsel in the place of the local prosecutor in a particular case, or category of cases, upon making a public finding that this is required for the protection of the public interest.

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The Daily Tar Heel had an odd editorial on Friday. Focusing on the actvities of the Association for Truth and Fairness, the editors noted,

The Duke lacrosse players accused of raping a stripper are facing ever rising legal fees even though it appears they're not guilty But now they're getting help. We just wish that more people who are wrongly accused could be afforded the same aid.

The editorial implied--but never came out and stated--that those contributing to ATAF should spread their money evenly to all other falsely accused defense teams. DTH editors instead might have urged the state NAACP to return to its roots and focus on such efforts, rather than aiding the prosecution of those falsely accused.

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Cathy Davidson was suggesting that the lacrosse players’ behavior could be used to symbolize male/female wage differential and for poverty, so why not make them a symbol for the war in Iraq, as well? This seems to be the operative thesis of among the more vapid columns on the case, a Huffington Post item from Patricia Zohn.

“The Duke Lacrosse team,” Zohn observed, “springs from similar elites” as did Bush. “It’s impossible to grow up like that and not have it imbue everything you do.” It’s not clear how Zohn would have interpreted FDR and JFK through this lens, but why let the facts get in the way of a bad argument?

“Athletic teams,” lectured Zohn, “have a culture of unity,” of “conformity and listening to a coach and to each other (and blocking everybody else out),” a “code of omerta, of sticking together, of hard work, yes, but also expected slack in other areas (academics, for example).” How does the Duke lacrosse culture explain the failure of the war in Iraq? “Bush has surrounded himself with powerful men who protect and serve with single minded devotion in a White House where fraternal loyalty is prized over clear, informed thinking.” Based on the quality of her post, it’s not at all clear that Zohn could identify “clear, informed thinking.”

Meanwhile, Zohn conceded that Nifong might have “overreached on the indictment counts and might even have obstructed justice,” but she found it “chilling” to see the parents defend their sons. (Somehow I doubt that Zohn would have objected to seeing Darryl Hunt’s mother defend her son.) “Not one parent,” Zohn fumed, “seemed to find it objectionable that even if their sons were technically not guilty of rape,” that they had done many things wrong, including “that there had been underage drinking and when things had gotten out of hand, that none had come forward to tell the whole, sordid story.”

Zohn’s bio says that she is a “writer living in Los Angeles.” Does she really expect people to believe that as someone who moves in LA’s cultural circles, she’s shocked and appalled by “underage drinking”? And as for no one having “come forward to tell the whole, sordid story,” apparently Zohn overlooked that Dave Evans went to the police without a lawyer and gave a detailed statement, his DNA, his e-mail password, and offered to take a lie detector test; or that Reade Seligmann put out a minute-by-minute account of what he had done that night.

Zohn’s implied meaning is that “none had come forward to tell the whole, sordid story” that she would prefer to hear.

One HuffPost commenter suggested tongue-in-cheek that Zohn must really be Amanda Marcotte’s mother.

Another Sunday Roundup by the always informative and incisive Professor Johnson. The state of North Carolina continues to frame three lacrosse players without a shred of evidence. Indeed, evidence is overwhelming that the three players aren't guilty of anything. The legal clock is ticking and taxpayers will pay a high price for this frame-up by a dishonest district attorney and a corrupt North Carolina justice system.

KC the funniest moment of the wee was this G88 Professor's blast at you and the responses

Anonymous said... Are you really such a clown that you can't tell the difference between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz? And do you really believe that an interdisciplinary history of consciousness program has no value?

12:10And do you really believe that an interdisciplinary history of consciousness program has no value?

Is that a trick question?

Richard said... And do you really believe that an interdisciplinary history of consciousness program has no value?

Actually I think it has negative value. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought that it was an article from the Onion. I have an idea. Why don't they set up a History of Unconsciousness program. Then they can bring the two programs together and see if they are able to produce a rift in the space-time continuum.

Michael said... Okay, a comic relief topic.

Can you get a minor in subconscienceness?

I think the professors question is actually the funniest of the bunch.

1. If you give special rights to a group of people for some number of years, they will eventually think they are special and owed. If the group is a racial group, they naturally become racists. So it is not surprising that 40+ years of afrimative action has produced lots of racists at NCCU.

There's just too much to address in this post...nice job KC...but I'd like to say one thing that might not be so popular or constructive. However, it is perfectly true.

NCCU is a terrible school. I would suspect that the education received there is equivalent or less to the education that most Duke students had already received by their sophomore year in high school. I knew a girl at Duke who had attended Arkansas School of Math and Science. She had a stronger math background coming out of high school that it is even possible to attain at NCCU. NCCU IS A REMEDIAL SCHOOL FOR REMEDIAL STUDENTS.

The preceding paragraph was not written to be cruel. It is simply the only explanation I can think of for why students at NCCU still believe that the accuser told the truth. The world of Duke University is, simply stated, in the minds of NCCU students, so uncompromisingly foreign to them that they can't comprehend that people associated with Duke would have similar values to them. Any explanation for the facts seem reasonable to them because they consider the gap between their and Duke's world to be so unreasonable. If it were necessary for time travel to exist and be readily accessible to the lacrosse players for this crime to have been committed(it would seem to be), I believe that NCCU students would find a way to rationalize the incident in such a way. This is the only way I can imagine this attitude to persist at NCCU.

It is completely absurd to believe that 40+ people at the party could have been unaware of an attack and/or been willing to cover it up afterwards. NCCU students seem to believe this. They are either completely ignorant of the majority of the facts in the case or they are complete idiots.

I address only the first part of his post, that which has a focus on the heavily racial aspect of this case. Blacks are looking at the broad landscape which is the world through a microscope instead of a telescope with a wide angle lens. Their lens is one that they will only focus on their paranoid delusions. One of their delusions is the sure conviction that they are racially superior in the fields of athletics and morals. I am a local coach in youth sports and this is what we face each and every time we play a black team: if and when we win (which is at least half the time) you can guarantee that the Black parents will start a mini-riot, screaming abuse at the officials, the coaches of the opposing teams, and the white/Hispanic players, children who are children between the ages of nine and twelve.

They "know" that the only way superior Blacks can lose is if they are cheated by a bunch of officials appointed by a white power structure. That is how they can rationalize that Black officials caused them to lose. This abuse of officials has become so bad that at least half of them refuse to referee games between whites and Blacks.

I'm not surprised that Durham's morally pure Blacks see this as a case of superior whites abusing poor little Blacks.

This is the USA right now. And it is partly thanks to a nation wide collection of college professors who teach (indoctrinate).

David Duke and his ilk hold the position that blacks are inherently incapable of governing themselves or anybody else...that left to their own devices, anarchy and chaos will prevail. Are the students at NCCC trying to prove them right??? Surely some of these people can see their own bigotry.

Previous to the Duke Rape Case I had absolutely no idea that academic leftists disapproved so highly of underage drinking.

Particularly when these same people are also so very highly approving of first hand smoking of dope and the use of intravenous drugs.

And it's astonishing how they disapprove of hiring of strippers yet they do approve of turning fellow female students into sexual objects. Something that I had thought was always verboten by the smarmy Feministas.

I guess in the flowering new world of academic leftoid brilliance the key to success is to smoke dope, not smoke tobacco, don't drink (unless you're legal) and by all means hire fellow students to take their clothes off.

...

Well I guess even the Pope has to go along with that sort of vision eh?

BTW, commenter Vivian Roberts hits the nail on the head. It is a fact that most Blacks (for whatever reason you choose to assign) cannot pass the entrance exams necessary to attend "good schools." The schools like NCCU are there only to "pacify" Black hostility toward their inability to do ordinary college work, work that is routinely performed at "good" colleges.

In other words, we whites have bought off race riots by building schools that have to be inferior if they are to admit Black students. So one of the results is a nation of pissed off Blacks who think they have degrees and who cannot get work because their degrees are as bogus as an internet diploma.

That's the way things are at the thousands of NCCUs across the country.

Howard, I think if say Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell were to read your post, their criticism might that you should change "can not" to "do not." And yes there would certainly be a lively debate as to why. But can not in some respects suggest and answer to why. Do not leaves the answer more up to debate.

There are many North Carolina lawyers and officals who gtaduated from NCCU law school. Even though a third tier school, does this mean it was the best law school they could get into? Professor Joyner has demonstrated muddled thinking through the whole case.

I'm wondering (but think I know the answer) if these 17 students were given ALL of the information (non-biased)surrounding this case before they were asked their views,otherwise what do their views really mean?

The important detail in the Sun article that no one seems to be noticing here is that all the students in the room looked around at each other before all raising their hands to say they believed the accuser. They all KNOW better than to believe this story, and if you asked them privately one-on-one for their opinions, you'd get a very different set of responses, I imagine. It's just that none of them have the courage to speak out publicly knowing the response that would certainly follow from the AA leadership, which is heavily invested in leveraging of every issue into a referendum on race guilt. Who wants to be publicly condemned by race-obsessed lunatics as a "Oreo" or an "Uncle Tom" or a "house n******?" In a world in which a black columnist uses the race of the black coaches' wives as a tiebreaker to determine which team to support in the Super Bowl based on I can't say as I blame them for not speaking up.

re: "Those intent on starting Sunday morning in a depressing fashion can read this recent article from the Baltimore Sun. The upshot: 17 students in a communications class at NCCU were recently asked their views on the case. Nine said they believed the accuser was sexually assaulted. The other eight said it could have happened, but that she might be impaired and couldn’t remember anything....etc."

Depressing? The Baltimore Sun article on NCCU students' opinions as well as the avalanche of polylogic emanating from feminists in the Duke "Humanities" departments along with feminists on TV and in Blogs merely UNDERLINE the tragedy of the TYRANNY of the IQ curve: American Blacks mean IQ 80 to 85 with SD circa 10, White Females mean IQ 95 to 97 with SD 12, White Males IQ 102 to 105 with SD 16. Do the math and see why rational thought is so rare. Education can not solve this situation. I have touched on this earlier in this saga:Here. The entire IQ subject has been really screwed up beginning circa the 1920s as IQ tests were skewed since then to make the results give the same MEAN results for white men and white women, that is, questions were fudged so as to eliminate supposed advantages in questions that males tended to get the correct answer compared to females. The writers of the tests had as an underlying premise that males and females had the same mean IQ which was a false assumption. Never the less, even with the flawed tests, white males make up the bulk of individuals over the IQ level of 150 with an increasing proportion of white males in each rank as IQ increases. One can read about this in the remarkable book:

The Scientific Study of General Intelligence (Hardcover) by Helmuth Nyborg (Editor) Price: $148.00 Hard cover: 668 pages, Publisher: Pergamon; 1st edition (June 1, 2003), Language: English, ISBN: 0080437931. If you cannot get a copy from a library the chapter on Sex differences in IQ ( Chapter 10 )by Helmuth Nyborg is available on the web if you search for it.

The Baltimore Sun story is scary. Every white person reading these comments could one day be falsely accused of a crime in which the victim was an African American. Draw a jury with a majority of black jurors and you have a serious problem. All of my grandparents were white racists (much like the vast majority of whites in their state), but their racism was oh so mild compared to the racism of what seems to be many blacks in today's America. It's scary all right, but it's also very sad.

The Daily Princetonian article by Brandon McGinly is, indeed, a must-read, capturing well the hypocrisy, arrogance, and cruelty of the Group of 88. As a loyal Duke alum, I am concerned, however, that such good articles on the Group, while justifiably serving to make public the excesses of these postmodern fools, will hurt Duke more than the earlier media firestorm has. Once all academia learns of their words and actions and bogus scholarship, what university will hire them? Duke will be stuck with the tenured ones. On the bright side, Vanderbilt hired the renowned Houston Baker before his true reputation caught up with him.

Anyone who clicked on the Zohn piece in HuffPo, but didn't click on her Bio at the top of the post should know that while living in NY, she was a member of several high-profile art and museum organizations.

You know, the kind of positions you don't get unless you're from a privileged background. My guess is Zohn has a lot more in common from a "class" perspective(socially and monetarily) with the people she is bashing (the LAX 3 and their families and Bush) than she does with Precious or Nikki.

Her claims of derision for privileged jocks and frat boys (and "smug" parents who defend them) must be a carry-over from her 60's crusade to separate herself from all those pretty sororiety girls. What a phony.

It's unfortunate that John Kennedy Toole holds the trademark for "A Confederacy of Dunces". Such an apt title for your forthcoming book.

I have discussed the Duke hoax with many friends and family who have only a cursory knowledge of this case. It is depressing their opinions have been formed by the pap they read in the MSM, or even by ignoramuses like Zohn. These folks are intelligent and certainly capable of understanding what has gone on here, they just have not been exposed to the details.

Atlantin hits the nail squarely on the head. However, everybody knows that open discussion of I.Q. and race is forbidden in the "Land of The Free". We get our jurors from registered voter lists. Thus the "average" juror in any large American city possesses a double digit I.Q. I recall that the Wall Street Journal ran an article some years ago about how lawyers deliberaly excluded potential jurors that possess higher I.Q.'s, such as engineers. Imagine how society would work if all important decisions were made this way...bridge design, surgery, sanitation.....or don't imagine....visit Haiti or Zimbabwe where I.Q. averages about 70.

One of the truly fascinating aspects of this case is the number of issues that have come to the forefront that plague American culture today. All this because of a non-rape case that should have been dealt with in a week's time.

We have the I.Q. debate.We see the grossly negative impact of affirmative action program;The feminization of the university and the political world;The growth of worthless agenda programs (womyn's studies, doctorates in human consciousness);The politicalization of justice;The politicalization of all aspects of American society;The cluelessness of the MSM;The bigotry of the N.A.A.C.P.The ever fermenting cesspool that is, apparently, Durham N.C.The toll that immoral behavior takes upon individuals, groups and society at large (Crystal's children - our expense? Let us not forget the immoral group behavior of the LAX team who apparently thought it was fine to hire strippers to come over and entertain the troops;The failure of University leadership in general - not just Prez Brodhead(they truly are gutless yet pandering).

In America we have trouble with TRUTH! (what conforms to observable reality)

Here are some truths; they seem simple enough.

Women can never be men!Agenda majors lead to idiocy!George Bush is not to blame for the LAX player's stupidity. (BTW, high I.Q. scores don't necessarily equate to good, common sense.)Honesty and truthfulness always trumps lies and political weaseling.Professional victims (ethnic, sexual, religious) make lousy neighbors and give us terrible laws.An expensive lawyer CAN make a huge difference.We will always have poor people. Please help the one nearest you.Illegal drugs are bad; that's why they're illegal.It rains on both the just and the unjust (but the just are getting wetter as the unjust keep stealing all the umbrellas).Societal tolerance of lies and verbal fiction is a mistake. Let us actually discriminate between the good and the bad. There is a real difference.

Which leads to Brown's Dictum!

On Earth 1) They all lie 2) Nothing works 3) You can never win 4) Pond Scum inevitably rises to the top!

When I read this definition of humility, relative to McGinely's Princetonian article, it becomes very easy to slot the cast of characters. One wonders how the NCCU students would respond had they read the following before answering...

Humility:"a prominent Christian grace (Rom. 12:3; 15:17, 18; 1 Cor. 3:5-7; 2 Cor. 3:5; Phil. 4:11-13). It is a state of mind well pleasing to God (1 Pet. 3:4); it preserves the soul in tranquillity (Ps. 69:32, 33), and makes us patient under trials (Job 1:22). Christ has set us an example of humility (Phil. 2:6-8). We should be led thereto by a remembrance of our sins (Lam. 3:39), and by the thought that it is the way to honour (Prov. 16:18), and that the greatest promises are made to the humble (Ps. 147:6; Isa. 57:15; 66:2; 1 Pet. 5:5). It is a "great paradox in Christianity that it makes humility the avenue to glory."

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

More common definition:

"the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, etc."

how was the racism of your grandparents "mild" compared to what you think is racism in today's blacks? Last time I checked, today's blacks do not tolerate systems similar to the Jim crow segregation system and lynchings,KKK right in front of them like your grandparents obviously did and get a good night sleep for decades( like your grandparents obviously did).

Please. Young blacks are not racists--they are not creating and tolerating systems of oppression like your grandparents did. They can be prejudiced againist whites but that comes from hard earned experience from dealing with whites on a daily basis--there is not a black person alive who does not have a white racism story to tell in their past--that is how whites are. there is a big difference in being prejudiced and being a racist.

Just so you know, texas is considered one of the most racist states in the US. The Jasper texas lynching where a man was drug behind a truck is an example and the Juneteenth, when the slaves were not freed on time and the huge number of lynchings in Texas are old examples.

The marxists in the race/gender/class warfare academic, and otherwise, arena, have clearly become what they despise - they're stereotype of the '50's white male.

Let's play a game. I'll post parts of the script and see if you can guess who in this tragedy the represent...

Background:"To continue, you've listened to a long and complex case: murder in the first degree. Premeditated murder is the most serious charge tried in our criminal courts . You've listened to the testimony, you've had the law read to you and interpreted as it applies in this case. It's now your duty to sit down and try to separate the facts from the fancy. One man is dead. Another man's life is at stake. If there is a reasonable doubt in your minds as to the guilt of the accused, a reasonable doubt, then you must bring me a verdict of 'Not Guilty'. If, however, there's no reasonable doubt, then you must, in good conscience, find the accused "Guilty". However you decide, your verdict must be unanimous. In the event you find the accused 'Guilty', the bench will not entertain a recommendation for mercy. The death sentence is mandatory in this case. You're faced with a grave responsibility. Thank you, gentlemen."

"Juror #6: Well, I'm not used to supposin'. I'm just a workin' man. My boss does all the supposin' - but I'll try one. Supposin' you talk us all out of this and, uh, the kid really did knife his father?"

Test #2, Jurors #10 and 11."Juror #10: Bright? He's a common ignorant slob. He don't even speak good English. Juror #11: Doesn't even speak good English."

Test #3 (Hint you may meet "Juror #10 at the Shut Up and Teach event", Juror 4, presents a problem...)

"Juror #10: I don't understand you people! I mean all these picky little points you keep bringing up. They don't mean nothing. You saw this kid just like I did. You're not gonna tell me you believe that phony story about losing the knife, and that business about being at the movies. Look, you know how these people lie! It's born in them! I mean what the heck? I don't have to tell you. They don't know what the truth is! And lemme tell you, they don't need any real big reason to kill someone, either! No sir! [Five gets up from his seat] Juror #10: They get drunk... oh, they're real big drinkers, all of 'em - you know that - and bang: someone's lyin' in the gutter. Oh, nobody's blaming them for it. That's the way they are! By nature! You know what I mean? VIOLENT! [Nine rises and crosses to the window] Juror #10: Where're you going? Juror #10: Human life don't mean as much to them as it does to us! [Eleven gets up and walks to the other window] Juror #10: Look, they're lushing it up and fighting all the time and if somebody gets killed, so somebody gets killed! They don't care! Oh, sure, there are some good things about 'em, too. Look, I'm the first one to say that. [Eight gets up and walks to the nearest wall] Juror #10: I've known a couple who were OK, but that's the exception, y'know what I mean? [Two and Six get up from the table. Everyone's back is to Ten] Juror #10: Most of 'em, it's like they have no feelings! They can do anything! What's goin' on here? I'm trying to tell you... you're makin' a big mistake, you people! This kid is a liar! I know it. I know all about them! Listen to me! They're no good! There's not a one of 'em who is any good! I mean, what's happening in here? I'm speaking my piece, and you... [the Foreman gets up and walks away. So does Twelve] Juror #10: Listen to me. We're... This kid on trial here... his type, well, don't you know about them? There's a, there's a danger here. These people are dangerous. They're wild. Listen to me. Listen.

"Juror #8: It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. I don't really know what the truth is. I don't suppose anybody will ever really know. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities - we may be wrong. We may be trying to let a guilty man go free, I don't know. Nobody really can. But we have a reasonable doubt, and that's something that's very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it's SURE. We nine can't understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us."

Test #5

"Juror #8: Here's what I think happened: the old man heard the fight between the boy and his father a few hours earlier. Then, when he's lying in his bed he heard a body hit the floor in the boy's apartment, heard the woman scream from across the street, got to his front door as fast as he could, heard somebody racing down the stairs and assumed it was the boy. Juror #6: I think that's possible. Juror #3: ASSUMED? Brother, I've seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day, but this little display takes the cake. Y'all come in here with your hearts bleedin' all over the floor about slum kids and injustice; you listen to some fairy tales; suddenly you start gettin' through to some of these old ladies... well, you're not getting through to me, I've had enough! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU GUYS? You all know he's guilty. He's got to burn! You're letting him slip through our fingers. Juror #8: Slip through our fingers? Are you his executioner? Juror #3: I'm one of 'em! Juror #8: Perhaps you'd like to pull the switch? Juror #3: For this kid? You bet I would! Juror #8: I feel sorry for you... what it must feel like to want to pull the switch. [baiting him] Juror #8: Ever since you walked into this room, you've been acting like a self-appointed public avenger! You want to see this boy die because you personally want it, not because of the facts! You're a sadist! [Three lunges wildly at Eight, who holds his ground. Several jurors hold Three back] Juror #3: I'll kill him! I'LL KILL HIM! Juror #8: You don't *really* mean you'll kill me, do you?"

"Juror #7: Well, what do we do now? [to #3] Juror #7: You're alone. Juror #3: I don't care whether I'm alone or not! It's my right. Juror #8: It's your right. Juror #3: Well, what do you want? I say he's guilty. Juror #8: We want to hear your arguments. Juror #3: I gave you my arguments! Juror #8: We're not convinced. We want to hear them again. We have as much time as it takes. Juror #3: Everything... every single thing that took place in that courtroom, but I mean everything... says he's guilty. What d'ya think? I'm an idiot or somethin'? Why don't cha take that stuff about the old man; the old man who lived there and heard every thing? Or this business about the knife! What, 'cause we found one exactly like it? The old man SAW him. Right there on the stairs. What's the difference how many seconds it was? Every single thing. The knife falling through a hole in his pocket... you can't PROVE he didn't get to the door! Sure, you can take all the time hobblin' around the room, but you can't PROVE it! And what about this business with the El? And the movies! There's a phony deal if I ever heard one. I betcha five thousand dollars I'd remember the movies I saw! I'm tellin' ya: every thing that's gone on has been twisted... and turned. This business with the glasses. How do you know she didn't have 'em on? This woman testified in open court! And what about hearin' the kid yell... huh? I'm tellin' ya, I've got all the facts here... [He struggles with his notebook, throws it on the table. The photo of him with his son is on top] Juror #3: Here... Ah. Well, that's it - that's the whole case! [He turns towards the window as the other jurors stare at him] Juror #3: Well... say something! You lousy bunch of bleedin' hearts. You're not goin' to intimidate me - I'm entitled to my opinion! [He sees the picture of his son on the table] Juror #3: Rotten kids... you work your life out! [He grabs the picture and tears it to pieces. He suddenly realizes what he's doing] [Breaks down] Juror #3: No. Not guilty. Not guilty."

Test #7

"Juror #2: It's hard to put into words. I just think he's guilty. I thought it was obvious from the word, 'Go'. Nobody proved otherwise. Juror #8: Nobody has to prove otherwise. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn't even have to open his mouth. That's in the Constitution."

As you know, Jeff Barker, who wrote the Baltimore Sun piece, interviewed me and had a quote about rape and evidence. when I look at the story again, and recalling my conversation with him, I realize that he operates from the mindset that says because the NCCU students are making these comments, they really must be legitimate.

The idea is that perceptions are reality. These students are not even willing to look at the facts when the facts do not favor their opinion. Now, I would guarantee that if the races were reversed, they suddenly would be telling us that DNA matters, and that the accuser was telling a thousand different stories, and so on.

The Duke case has confirmed once again what happens when one takes on group mentality, and combines that mentality with the "metanarratives" of race and sex. What follows is nothing less than a "social disaster."

Students at NCCU and blacks in general will learn nothing from this case. They think that the "lesson" here is that blacks do not get a fair shake from the justice system.

Yet, CGM's claims, as outlandish as they were, resulted in indictments and the subsequent result in which three families have been forced to pay out more than a million dollars apiece to fight these false charges. If you ask me, that is "taking the accuser seriously."

Again, the NCCU students never would have accepted these results had the races been reversed. Now, I would hope that no one would accept such transparently false charges, no matter what race the accusers or accused might be. But, to paraphrase Karla Holloway, when we see people making judgments through the "matrix" of race and sex, we also see the results, and they are ugly.

"Juror #3: What do you mean you want to try it? Why didn't his lawyer bring it up if it's so important? Juror #5: Well, maybe he just didn't think about it huh? Juror #10: What do you mean didn't think of it? Do you think the man's an idiot or something? It's an obvious thing. Juror #5: Did you think of it? Juror #10: Listen smart guy, it don't matter whether I thought of it. He didn't bring it up because he knew it would hurt his case. What do you think of that? Juror #8: Maybe he didn't bring it up because it would of meant bullying and badgering a helpless old man. You know that doesn't sit very well with a jury; most lawyers avoid it if they can. Juror #7: So what kind of a bum is he then? Juror #8: That's what I've been asking, buddy."

"Juror #3: That business before when that tall guy, what's-his-name, was trying to bait me? That doesn't prove anything. I'm a pretty excitable person. I mean, where does he come off calling me a public avenger, sadist and everything? Anyone in his right mind would blow his stack. He was just trying to bait me. Juror #4: He did an excellent job."

Test #12

"Juror #7: You a Yankee fan? Juror #5: No, Baltimore (Durham). Juror #7: Baltimore (Durham)? That's like being hit in the head with a crow bar once a day."

Test #13

"Juror #3: Look, you voted guilty. What side are you on? Juror #11: I don't believe I have to be loyal to one side or the other. I'm simply asking questions"

"Juror #8: I just want to talk. Juror #7: Well, what's there to talk about? Eleven men in here think he's guilty. No one had to think about it twice except you. Juror #10: I want to to ask you something: do you believe his story? Juror #8: I don't know whether I believe it or not - maybe I don't. Juror #7: So how come you vote not guilty? Juror #8: Well, there were eleven votes for guilty. It's not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first. Juror #7: Well now, who says it's easy? Juror #8: No one. Juror #7: What, just because I voted fast? I honestly think the guy's guilty. Couldn't change my mind if you talked for a hundred years. Juror #8: I'm not trying to change your mind. It's just that... we're talking about somebody's life here. We can't decide it in five minutes. Supposing we're wrong? Juror #7: Supposing we're wrong! Supposing this whole building should fall down on my head. You can suppose anything! Juror #8: That's right."

"Juror #8: According to the testimony, the boy looks guilty... maybe he is. I sat there in court for six days listening while the evidence built up. Everybody sounded so positive, you know, I... I began to get a peculiar feeling about this trial. I mean nothing is that positive. There're a lot of questions I'd have liked to ask. I don't know, maybe they wouldn't have meant anything, but... I began to get the feeling that the defense counsel wasn't conducting a thorough enough cross-examination. I mean he... he let too many things go by... little things that... Juror #10: What little things? Listen, when these fellas don't ask questions it's because they know the answers already and they figure they'll be hurt. Juror #8: Maybe. It's also possible for a lawyer to be just plain stupid, isn't it? I mean it's possible. Juror #7: You sound like you met my brother-in-law."

Test #16"o [after Juror #8 has established that the old man witness could not have heard the killing over the noise of the elevated train] Juror #3: Why should he lie? What's he got to gain? Juror #9: Attention, maybe. Juror #3: You keep coming in with these bright sayings. Why don't you send 'em into a paper - they pay three dollars apiece. Juror #6: What are you talkin' to him like that for? Guy talks like that to an old man really oughta get stepped on, you know. You oughta have more respect, mister. If you say stuff like that to him again... I'm gonna lay you out."

Test #17 (final one, there's more, but you get the idea). Please excuse me, for those that think this is sucking the oxygen out of the room. However, as posted before, this movie really touches on so many of the themes of this travesty. Thanks for your indulgence.

"o Juror #10: all right, who was it? I wanna know. Juror #11: excuse me, this was a secret ballot. We all agreed on that. Now if the gentleman wants it to remain secret... Juror #3: secret? What do you mean secret? There are no secrets in a jury room, I know who it was. [to juror 5] Juror #3: brother you really are something, you sit here vote guilty like the rest of us then some golden voice preacher starts tearing your poor heart out about some under privileged kid, just couldn't help becoming a murderer, and you change your vote. Well if that isn't the most sickening... Why don't you drop a quarter in his collection box! Juror #5: oh now just wait a minute, listen you can't talk to me that, who do you think you are? Juror #4: now calm down, calm down! Juror #5: no, now who do you think you are? Juror #4: it doesn't matter he's very excitable, just sit down. Juror #3: excitable! You bet i'm excitable. We are trying to put a guilty man in the chair where he belongs, and then someone starts telling us fairytales and we're listening! Juror #1: heya, c'mon now. [to juror 5] Juror #3: what made you change your vote? Juror #9: he didn't change his vote. I did! Juror #10: ohhh fine. Juror #9: Would you like me to tell ya why? Juror #7: No I wouldn't like you to tell me why... Juror #9: Well I'd like to make it clear anyways, if you don't mind. Juror #10: Do we have to listen to this? Juror #6: the man wants to talk. Juror #9: thank you. [motions to juror 8] Juror #9: This gentleman has been standing alone against us. Now he doesn't say that the boy is not guilty, he just isn't sure. Well it's not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others, so he gambled for support and I gave it to him. I respect his motives. The boy is probably guilty, but-eh I want to hear more. Right now the vote is 10 to two. [juror 7 gets up and heads to the bathroom] Juror #9: Now im talking here, you have no right to leave this room... Juror #8: he cant hear you, and he never will, lets sit down."

Ah, NCCU - what a glorious place - full of freedom and deep thinkers. One woman was shot to death in student housing there the other day. I am sure the woman who shot her was innocent, as she is black, too. Where are the potbangers?

In any case, what would one expect from such an intellectual cesspool - certainly not logic or intelligence.

Amen to the comment on humility. I am just trying to reconcile it with my inclination to acknowledge that at some point the GRUMPS move from being "misguided" and "agenda driven" for purposes of this case to being aggresively dishonest.

The most recent information on Scott Brewer's antics as an ADA can be found at:

http://www.newsobserver.com/141/story/539583.html

Here's the first couple of paragraphs:

Judge: Evidence withheld at trialDA hid witness's claims, ruling says

Emily S. Achenbaum, Charlotte Observer A federal judge reviewing the case of a man on death row said the prosecution hid witness statements in a 1995 Union County murder case.U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen, in documents filed Tuesday, said the prosecution in the case against Darrell Strickland lied to the court, even when doing so was unnecessary to win the conviction or death sentence.

But former prosecutor Scott Brewer, now a District Court judge, said he didn't deliberately withhold anything.

"In suppressing [witness statements] ... and lying about it to the court, the prosecution lost sight of what the American judicial system strives to guarantee," Mullen wrote.

Strickland, 48, remains on death row in the fatal shooting of Henry Nathaniel Brown. The shooting happened during a night of drinking in Strickland's Marshville home. A request in federal court for his release put the case before Mullen.

I've got information and documentation on Brewer in a civil case as a judge. It's about 6 pages and I can FAX or .pdf an email to whoever may have interest.

7:25 AM"Please. Young blacks are not racists--they are not creating and tolerating systems of oppression like your grandparents did. "

Some of the 'grandparents' did hate. However, most of them as individuals did not make the flawed laws... they just accepted separation because that's the way things were. Very, very few accepted or supported your lynching mentality.

However, what you see from many young Blacks (as demonstrated by the NCCU thinking) is pure hatred of people based on race. And that's more than 40 years after laws changed.

It's also interesting that you still see people as groups, as evidenced by your statement that Texas (21M) is a 'racist state'.

I was a heavy user of hard drugs for a long time, and know many people in the situation. Having some sort of unpleasant past or fractured personality was an almost universal factor- long before most of these people ever started using drugs- physical detox fails because leaves underlying psychological factors intact (in many cases I don't think people can ever really be "cured" anyway). The war on drugs has made criminals people who are mostly either looking for relaxation/stress relief, or escaping some form of psychic torment. oh- Literally every female junkie I've met had either been raped or molested.

Given the generally poor coverage of the Hoax by the print media, I had written reporter Jeff Barker (abridged) --

"Thoughtful and informative piece... I suspect most of your Black readers and most of your White readers will draw very different conclusions from each other. Sadly. But that's the reality, and you've added useful context to the story...

"One minor note: You state that the accuser is/was a full-time student at NCCU.

"Her status actually seems to be unclear. At some point, she took a class or classes there. Whether she passed these classes and how many credits she was taking at the time of last March’s events aren’t known. I haven’t seen the 'full time' description before today. Nobody seems to have identified any NCCU students or professors who know her and recall seeing her on campus. And federal privacy issues make records very hard to obtain.

"Obviously being a student or not-a-student doesn’t change the events of the night in question. Obviously, too, there has been a tremendous amount of spin concerning the case, with the alleged victim’s advocates presenting her as an 'NCCU student.' In that regard, it would be useful to understand if that context is correct or not."

"“Athletic teams,” lectured Zohn, “have a culture of unity,” of “conformity and listening to a coach and to each other (and blocking everybody else out),” a “code of omerta, of sticking together, of hard work, yes, but also expected slack in other areas (academics, for example).”

One point regarding NCCU law school - it is the only law school in NC that offers night classes. Some people are only ablt to attend law school at night due to life circumstances.

The rest of the school is just what you imagine - a festering pool of racial hatred and resentment peopled by thugs and Crystal Gail Mangum wannabes. I would never hire, nor allow anyone I know to hire a person with a degree from that school - they are misfits and criminals. But they do have low IQs.

K.C., you left out the most important part of the Baltomore Sun story. All 17 students believe that either Dave, Reade or Collin is the real father of Anna Nicole's baby girl.

Please, please...many posters have pilloried all blacks as dumb based on 17 in a Communications class. Communications!

What do non-academically inclined jocks major in? Communications. Naturally a dumb journalist that started in communications will seek out peers.

Before opining on the merits or detriments of the whole black race, people damn better get a sense of perspective. The Baltimore Sun doing a Poll of 17 in one class at NCCU does not qualify.(I'd love the writer to some serious inquiry and go into NCCU's technical, engineering, sciences section and ask the same questions.)

I suspect that if you ask 17 loopy Lefties occupying Duke's communications classes the same questions that the replies might be at a higher "level" than NCCU, but still fucked up.**************************

Cedarford at 10;54 is spot on. The "evidence" provided about NCCU is almost useless. The "sampling errors" are so obvious that there is little point mentioning them. Would any of you you trust a political poll conducted in such a manner? Are we readers of this blog not united in our belief that real evidence -- not anecdotes -- is what ultimately matters?

'Nyborg quotes Gross and Levitt from their 1994 book, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science:

"Gross and Levitt wanted, first of all to avoid muddle-headedness in their own quarter, so they set out to '...first define what unites the AL [Academic Left] individuals.' They found that ALs do not '...have a well-defined theoretical position with respect to science ... but a noteworthy uniformity of tone, and that tone is unambiguously hostile ... [toward] some of the uses to which science is put ... toward the system of education ... toward the actual content of scientific knowledge and toward the assumption ... [that] scientific knowledge is reasonably reliable and rests on a sound methodology…' to an extent that '…irrationality is courted and proclaimed with pride' (pp. 2-3; authors' emphasis). The group of ALs, furthermore, typically comprises humanists and social scientists, rarely working physical scientists. ALs can often be identified under the umbrella of post-modernism in fields like literary criticism, social history, cultural studies, cultural constructivism, postmodern philosophy, feminist theory, deep ecology, deconstruction, and so forth." '

From: http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/ARJtribute.htm

Thanks to a previous poster for the clue. Well worth the read. I especially liked "irrationality is courted and proclaimed with pride" in the snippet.

Before opining on the merits or detriments of the whole black race, people damn better get a sense of perspective.

Cedarford, with all due respect...

This poll of 17 NCCU students did not take place in a vacuum. It is simply the latest in a long list of black quotes and comments that seem to perpetuate the notion that blacks share a racist, anti-white pack mentality. The number of blacks who have spoken out in favor of the Dukies is infinitesimal.

At this point in time, with all the evidence of innocence in the public record, it is unthinkable that any group of 17 people (even communications majors at Duke) could still believe in the Hoax.

10:13 - Illegal drugs are bad. Whinning about their past fors not cut it. Drugs and alcohol fill up the jails and they all feel sorry for themselves - not for what they did, but that they got caught. If you hang around with scuzzy people in scuzzy places, scuzzy things happen.

Dines, Zook and Zorn I could laugh at easily. They are exactly what I would expect from the left wing agenda driven crowd. Not so much Zohn. She is pure evil. She knows the facts and lied anyway. This one does deserve to be boycotted. Ugh - she makes me feel dirty.

"None the less, the students are trying to better themselves. This hategul attitude is not helping them at all."

Treating the problem as though it didn't exist is even less helpful. Until the reality of the subpar education produced by inner city secondary schools is addressed, the demand for such post-secondary schools as NCCU will continue unabated.

Zohn should have compared Bush to Nifong.Both fabricated non-existent evidense in order to push their own agenda without regards to the negative impact it would have upon others.Bush Nifonged us into a war we can't get out of.

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I am from Higgins Beach, in Scarborough, Maine, six miles south of Portland. After spending five years as track announcer at Scarborough Downs, I left to study fulltime in graduate school, where my advisor was Akira Iriye. I have a B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard, and an M.A. from the University of Chicago. At Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, I teach classes in 20th century US political, constitutional, and diplomatic history; in 2007-8, I was Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the Humanities at Tel Aviv University.

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"From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . , Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of constitutional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you’re unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you can afford."--Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times Book Review